Salvation
by KookieEvans
Summary: "You can take the ex-criminal psychopath out of Gotham, but you can't take Gotham out of the ex-criminal psychopath."  Sometimes salvation can offer itself in the oddest of ways. Crane-centric, oneshot.


**Disclaimer : I do not own anything recognisable!**

**Author's Note : Hello ladies and gents! I took absolutely ages writing and typing this up...and now it has changed so much from what I had first imagined. Hmm. How did that happen? It's not a bad thing though :)**

**Umm, well, I hope you enjoy it, please review!**

Two minutes, twenty seven seconds. Despite the thousands of dollars Wayne Enterprises must have spent on their security systems, it took Jonathan Crane only two minutes and twenty seven seconds to hack in and disable it. He wasn't stupid - when working with R'as al Ghul he had used the situation to his advantage and learnt all he could from the League of Shadows. That was all behind him now though, of course (but it did feel good to be doing things without thinking about the consequences again).

He had been planning this day for weeks now. It had to be perfect; it had to send a message. Crane cared not for the high-tech gadgets Wayne Enterprises had squirreled away somewhere under lock and key. He didn't care about the piles of money undoubtedly hidden in some secret safe (because where else would some orphaned fuckwit leave some of his inheritance if not at the family office?).

No. Jonathan cared only for the fire exit in front of him.

The blank white door seemed too plain - too fucking practical - inside the modern building. The rest of the décor was posh and expensive; glass walls and crystal ceilings. Hmm. The building was just like the people who worked in it : beautiful, but so damn transparent.

With a bitter bark of a laugh, Jonathan shouldered the door open and stumbled out onto a metal staircase that clung desperately to the side of Wayne Tower. His eyebrows twitched with annoyance when he realised that opening the door had set off an automatic fire alarm, but shrugged off his concerns. The place was empty, and it was the middle of the night. By the time anyone discovered the alarm had gone off he would be long gone.

Lightning crackled across the sky as Crane's long legs raced up the winding stairs, up and up and up, until he began to wonder just how damn tall the tower really was. When he finally reached the roof his glasses were so soaked by the insistent pounding rain that they had become totally useless, so instead he calmly tucked them away in his jacket pocket.

The storm had been brewing for days now, and was at its glorious best over Gotham City. The rain was like nothing he had ever seen before: non-stop downpours, the kind of rain that hit you like hammers and weighed your whole body down. The weatherman were stumped.

Perhaps this was something biblical? Maybe God was punishing Gotham for its citizens crimes - the water logged corpses of pimps and rotting mobsters in a drowned city as a warning to the rest of the world. Maybe he should just lie back and let the water fill his lungs, choking and gasping until the world wrung out his last pathetic breath? It was tempting.

But it wasn't part of the plan.

Instead he spread his arms slightly and tipped his head back, eyes closed and mouth slightly open in the perfect picture of ecstasy. A sudden growl of thunder made him shudder, and his brilliant blue eyes cracked open. The sight greeting him made him breath catch in his throat, an he tripped forward a few steps, automatically slipping his glasses back on despite their ineffectiveness during such harsh weather conditions.

All of Gotham lay stretched out before him, bright lights peering out through the blackness of the night like scantily clad hookers leering at potential customers in a grimy back alley. The city was naked and unashamed, beautiful in an ugly kind of way (or maybe ugly in a beautiful kind of way). From Jonathan's vantage point you couldn't even make out the few people who were still awake, just moving specks far, far below him. A lonely car raced through the streets - a young, hysterical man racing his pregnant wife to the hospital for the birth of his first child. Crane re-evaluated the car. Or it could be a desperate druggy running from a deal gone wrong. Gotham was like that sometimes, which was exactly why he was where he was. The city was a stinking, repulsive hole, but it was under his skin.

You can take the ex-criminal psychopath out of Gotham, but you can't take Gotham out of the ex-criminal psychopath.

His fingers, numb from cold, fumbled at his jacket buttons and slipped the garment from his skinny shoulders, so that it fell discarded to the floor in a crumpled heap. The devious wind picked up just in time to chill his lean body, and his mutinous wet shirt clung skin-tight to his shivering chest. The rain pattered harshly against his face and his teeth chattered, but despite everything he felt no desire to go back into the warm.

He felt nothing.

So, step by steady step he slid closer to the edge of the building, his thumb brushing his trouser pocket to reassure himself that the letter he had written was still scrunched up inside.

Thoughtfully, he teetered at the very edge. He felt he should say something. Something clever and witty, or deep and dark. He always was one for the dramatics. Perhaps he should have pursued a career in acting - he would have made a fabulous thespian.

He had briefly considered wearing the mask one last time. It would have made for some amazing shots for the press to get their grubby little hands on. But that wasn't who he was anymore. He didn't feel like Scarecrow, or Dr Crane, so he was avoiding an identity crisis and thinking of himself as Jonathan, the man who had no idea people like R'as or the Bat-Man even existed.

Unfortunately, a man like that didn't last very long in Gotham City.

"For God's sake!" He growled angrily, shaking his head and sent little droplets of water flying around him.

With a burst of lightning and a scream of thunder, Jonathan Crane took a dizzying step off the building and into the hungry nothingness awaiting him.

Or at least he would have, if he were not lying flat on his back with a giant bat on top of him.

Crane blinked at the bat.

The bat blinked back.

"Crane?"

"Ten out of ten for observation Mr Batman. Now would you kindly get off me? This suit is Armani."

Stunned, the dark knight obliged, and Jonathan rose to his feet, dusting down his trousers with more than a hint of annoyance gracing his features. When he had composed his plan he had not considered the possibility of a flying rodent swooping straight into him.

"What are you doing here?" The armoured man growled.

"Isn't it obvious?" Jonathan patted his pocket once more to be sure that his carefully written letter hadn't fallen out in the collision, then satisfied he straightened to stare at the other man, one eyebrow raised. "Why did you save me?"

A muscle in the Bat's cheek jumped, and he broke eye contact, shifting his body awkwardly.

"I didn't."

Jonathan frowned, then reconsidered the situation. His eyes widened in disbelief.

"You're fucking…you're kidding me." He huffed out a bemused laugh. "Talk about as blind as a bat!"

Batman's lips thinned with displeasure.

"It's hard to see in a storm like this." Came the clipped reply.

Crane's eyes closed and he shook his head lightly. He wearily shuffled towards the building's edge, and Batman tensed, ready to pull the smaller man back, only to see him slump down so that he was sat with his legs dangling over the edge.

"Just my luck. I try to throw myself off a building and I get mowed down by some storm-blinded bat." He sighed and slipped his hands under his glasses to rub his tired eyes. "What are the chances of that?"

The Bat, feeling totally out of place, said nothing.

"Once again, you've ruined everything."

"You could always try to jump again."

The words took Jonathan by surprise, and he glanced up to see the Batman towering over him like some warped guardian angel. Perhaps that was what he was - he always seemed to be saving Jonathan from himself, intentionally or otherwise. He smirked.

"Or you could push me." With a bitter grin he looked back out over the city. "No? I thought not."

"Get up."

"No, I don't think I will." He sighed lightly.

"Get up Crane." And without waiting for a reply he grabbed the younger man's arm in a vice-like grip and pulling him up and away from the building's edge. The ex-psychiatrist huffed angrily and wrenched his arm away.

"I'm not going back to Arkham. I did my time. They released me. I'm not going back.""You need help if you're feeling suicidal."

"I don't care," Jonathan shot the taller man a blood-freezing glare. "I'd rather die than go back there!"

"Given your recent actions that doesn't really mean a lot."

"…Touché." Crane shivered as a particularly strong gust of wind whipped around him, and he suddenly felt rather foolish in front of the dark knight watching him. He crossed his arms, and tried his hardest to stop his teeth from chattering.

"I don't have time for this. Come on." The Bat jerked his head impatiently. Jonathan frowned slightly. The black eye make up the vigilante usually wore had mostly washed away, and he realised for the first time that the Batman had light brown eyes. Upon closer inspection the whites of his eyes were more pink…was someone not getting their beauty sleep?

It really hit home that the silent form in front of him really was just another human being. A human being he had sprayed with fear toxin, set fire to and thrown out of a window. Jonathan suddenly felt overwhelmed, and shuffled backwards towards the endless draw of the edge of the building, ruined plans be damned.

Noticing the slight movement, Batman froze, then slowly stretched out a hand as though trying to coax in a wild animal.

"Crane," He gently growled - now there was an oxymoron if he had ever heard one. "Come here."

Jonathan glanced over his shoulder at the intoxicating city below him and bit his lip softly.

"Promise not to take me to Arkham?"

"I give you my word."

Jonathan hesitantly took a small step forward, rubbing his soaked arms uneasily, then closed his eyes and strode to the Batman's side.

To his embarrassment he let out a rather unmanly squeak when he felt a strong arm wrap around his waist. Batman glanced down at him with poorly disguised amusement.

"Hold on." Jonathan watched in interest as the vigilante fumbled with some sort of gadget.

…Then threw himself and Crane off the building.

Which was, in the end, his intended outcome, but this wasn't quite how he had envisioned it.

He instinctively burrowed closer to the figure holding him, fingers digging into the arm supporting him.

"…Shit!" He finally breathed out, once he realised they were in fact flying, not falling. "Perhaps you could give me some warning next time?"

Crane then turned his head as much as he could to take in his surroundings, while the wind tousled his hair. He sincerely hoped no one looked out of their penthouse windows now.

"Why Wayne tower?" The Bat was the first to break the silence, and the question caught Jonathan so off guard he found himself answering it.

"Hmm? Ah. I wanted to make a statement. Thomas and Martha Wayne were famous for fighting criminals like me, so I figured I'd give them a final achievement. Though I guess their waste of a space son Bert wouldn't really care about something like that."

"Bruce. His name is Bruce."

"Ah. Whatever." Jonathan observed that they were getting closer and closer to the ground. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly as it rushed up to meet them, but the landing was surprisingly gentle as the Batman had somehow managed to land them both on their feet.

"How do you know where I live?" Crane wobbled, a little unsteady on his feet, and watched while the dark knight ignored him and fetched the spare key out from under the potted plant Jonathan kept on his rather uninspiring doorstep. His eyebrows knitted together. That was worrying. Batman unlocked his front door, and without invitation he entered the house. After a slight pause of confusion, Jonathan followed.

Seeing the Batman stood, arms crossed, in his plain living room made Crane unsure of whether to laugh hysterically or break down into floods of tears. Instead he fell, somewhat stunned onto his old beaten couch.

"I…" Crane swallowed nervously, feeling like a naughty schoolboy under the ever-watchful gaze of the sombre statue in front of him. "Why are you still here?"

"I have a proposition for you." The other man growled.

"Which is?"

"I can't just leave you like this. Believe it or not, I don't want to read about your suicide in the papers. So I want to give you something to look forward to."

The Batman stopped for a minute, apparently weighing up his next words in his head. Jonathan considered prompting him, but decided against it. The bat seemed to have been trying to convince himself his idea was a good one, so whatever it was it must have been worthwhile.

In the short silence, Jonathan noticed he was dripping water into his couch. He uncomfortably tried to pull his wet shirt away from his slender body, grimacing.

"You could help me."

Crane frowned and chewed his lip slightly. Thoughtfully, he removed his glasses and carefully lay them down of his coffee table.

"How exactly would I be doing that?" He replied calmly, trying to shake the mental image of himself in a Bat-Suit working alongside the dark knight. For some reason he doubted that was quite what the Batman had in mind.

"You could use your knowledge in psycho-pharmacology to create certain antidotes I may need."

"Why would you need any?" Crane asked, somewhat dazed.

"Many criminals are following your example and using chemical weapons against myself and others. And it would be helpful to have a psychiatrist on hand to to give some insight into what they may be planning."

Jonathan blinked.

"Why would I want to help you?" He asked bluntly.

"Because it would mean regular access to a high quality lab and a wide range of chemicals. Under close supervision."

Jonathan rubbed his tired eyes and exhaled heavily. It was tempting.

"I'll give you twenty four hours to think it over. If you agree to it, call the number on this phone's memory and leave a voicemail message." The Batman dropped a mobile phone onto the couch next to Crane and crossed the room. He paused in the doorway and glanced back. "If I don't hear from you by then, I'll know what your choice is."

Jonathan nodded a little, and turned to face the raindrops racing down his window with unseeing eyes. By the time he looked back the Batman was long gone. He ran his thin fingers through his damp hair. He wasn't a fool. The real choice was clear to both him and the vigilante : assist the Batman, or follow through with his self-destructive urges. They both had strong pulls - his desire for death hadn't disappeared, but his curiosity longed to see what sort of mixtures he would be asked to create.

He calmly set aside his logic and settled upon something fair and unbiased. Chance.

Jonathan scrambled in his pockets to find a coin - freezing only momentarily when his hand brushed against his suicide letter - and settled upon a new shiny dollar. Without pausing for thought he flipped it into the air then deftly caught it, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. Heads he would call the Bat, assist him, and seek help for the way he felt.

Tails he would go buy a gun and blow his own fucking brains out.

He took a steadying breath and opened his bright blue eyes. A shaky breath escaped him.

Jonathan Crane had made his choice.

* * *

**Author's Note : **

**Phew! I'm so glad to have finally uploaded this - it's been such a pain.**

**Oh, and maybe, you know, if you liked this idea you could continue it? I wouldn't mind (in fact I would love it :D)**

**Or you could review :D Just saying.**

**So thanks for taking the time to read this, and I really hope you enjoyed it!**

**Have a nice day everyone :)**


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